


Counteroffers

by fabrega



Series: Counteroffers & Second Chances [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, Feelings, Flirting, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 19:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8591086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: Sometimes the universe decides some idiot deserves a second chance.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For Sarah, who tossed me a shovel when I fell in this hole and then egged me on every step of the way. ♥

Gabe looks up as Jack walks into his office without knocking and drops a personnel pad onto his desk. He knows what it is without looking, but he makes a show of swiping it open and flicking through the contents before making slightly defiant eye contact with Jack.

Jack stares back at him.

Gabe's gonna make him say it.

"The Deadlock Gang? Really?"

Gabe snorts. "It's not like I want to recruit all of them."

"No, but you want to recruit a non-zero number of them." Jack's stance settles, and he folds his arms across his chest.

That kind of intimidation may work on people who only know him by reputation, but they've been at this too long for it to work on Gabe. "You told me to recruit the most capable agents for Blackwatch. I don't come to your work and tell you how to do _your_ job."

"This _is_ my work, and yes, you do, you are literally doing that right now." Jack sighs. "When I got the paperwork, I went by the holding cells to check on your boy. He's--" One of Jack's arms comes free and gestures for a moment before Jack sighs again and recrosses them. "I know how you are with strays."

"This only works if you trust me," Gabe reminds him.

"I sent you a list of possible Blackwatch candidates. There were plenty of assholes on that list just as talented with no history of shooting at the two of us."

"Thank you, Jack."

"His gun has a spur on it," Jack tries again.

" _Thank you_ , Jack." Gabe gets up from his desk and practically shoves Jack out the door.

"There is no good reason for a gun to have a spur on it," Jack says as he is being shoved out.

"I'll take that under advisement," Gabe says. (He is not going to take it under advisement.) He gives Jack a fuck-you salute and lets the door close between them, leaning heavily up against it, partially to keep Jack from trying to come back in and partially just because. Across the room, Jesse McCree's Overwatch file stares up at him from his desk accusingly.

.

Turns out the kid's a little shit. That doesn't surprise Gabe, but he _is_ surprised when McCree doesn't take the offer right away.

"I don't know if you've noticed, McCree, but you're not really in a position to negotiate."

McCree's wrists are handcuffed to the table, but he leans back as far as he is able and gives Gabe a louche grin. "Could always go to prison. Besides," and here McCree's smile falters, his expression becoming a little more vulnerable, "You said it yourself: you got a whole mess of candidates to choose from. Why do you need me?"

Gabe mirrors his posture, leans back in his chair, shrugs. "Sometimes the universe decides some idiot deserves a second chance," he says, because it's easier than trying to explain--and an explanation usually requires a reason, which he's not entirely sure he has.

"Sounds like it might not be the universe," McCree says, and there's something in his tone that Gabe can't quite put his finger on. "Sounds like it might just be you."

Gabe had already been planning to leave, he tells himself as he pushes back from the table very deliberately. The flare of annoyance he's feeling is in no way connected to his exit; he certainly hasn't been rattled enough to need to be anywhere but here. 

"Whoever it is, that's the offer. Take it or leave it, McCree." He heads for the interview room's entryway and raps on the door; he can hear the guard outside start the complicated process of unlocking it.

"It's Jesse." Gabe turns to look and McCree's whole demeanor has changed--he's hunched over the table, the smile and confidence gone, leaving a frightened young man in their wake. Gabe's struck hard by the contradiction of the kid.

"Take it or leave it, Jesse."

At the sound of his name, McCree lights up, and oh, this could be a problem.

.

(He pulls the stuff they'd taken off the kid from storage and yeah, Jack's right, McCree's gun has a fucking spur on the grip. There's also a hat and a raggedy-ass poncho and a pair of goddamned cowboy boots and everything is decorated with bullets, and he _knows_ the kid is going to be worth it, but damn, the kid had better be worth it.)

.

Gabe knows that they've got the new agent onboarding process down to a well-oiled science, but it still surprises him when he goes away on Blackwatch business for a month and a half and comes back to find McCree a full-fledged member of Overwatch. There's some optional training he hasn't done--various weapons proficiency courses and some unlikely emergency procedures--but he is on the Overwatch roster and is available for any missions that come up.

He finds McCree in the practice range, using the gun they'd let him keep to easily dispatch their training bots.

"He's really taken to it. He's been asking after you, sir," a voice says from behind him. Gabe does not jump; it's Regina, who's in charge of the practice range and who he'd obviously known would be here in the command center too. He knows that, of course. He just doesn't know how _long_ she's been here, or how long he's been standing here, watching McCree.

"It's been busy," he says, feeling his face grow warm. He reaches up and resettles his cap on his head, then offers a nod down to where McCree is probably busy combat-rolling past some harmless training bot. "He's doing okay today?" When Regina pulls his stats up on the screen, Gabe looks them over and lets out a low whistle. "He's equipped with practice tech, right?"

Regina nods and helps outfit Gabe with tech of his own, a set of shotguns loaded with harmless practice rounds and a bulletproof vest. (She doesn't ask him if he thinks this is really a good idea when he slips silently into the practice range, which he appreciates.)

Something about McCree makes him itch. Gabe wants to see if he can't catch him off-guard. He knows he's watched him long enough to get the kid's pattern--it's hard not to fall into one, when the practice range program loops the way it does--and he knows that if he goes up, jumps across to one of the rotating platforms, and drops down _here_ \--

"Like shooting fish in a barrel," McCree says to himself, sounding smug as he shoots one, two, three bots in quick succession.

"Boo," he says in McCree's ear, one shotgun pressed to the small of his back.

McCree lets out an undignified shriek and wheels on Gabe, tossing what turns out to be an immobilizing grenade at him. He is stunned long enough for McCree to empty what's left of his clip into the vest on Gabe's chest. All this appears to have been done on reflex, because McCree's look of triumph slides into panic when he looks up from reloading to see that he's shot his commanding officer.

Well. Gabe isn't technically his CO; that would be Strike Commander Morrison. That's a thing they still need to talk about.

"Oh shit, Gabe!"

When Gabe regains his full range of motion, he gives McCree a disapproving look. "That's Reyes to you, McCree--or better yet, try 'sir'." 

(Who has McCree been talking to, he wonders, who might be on such casual terms with him? It's a pretty short list.)

"It's Jesse, _sir_ ," McCree says with a smirk. It feels like he's trying to see how much he can get away with.

Gabe very pointedly does not rise to the bait.

"Sorry about that," McCree says after waiting a moment too long for Gabe to respond. "You surprised me."

"Good, I was trying to. Wanted to see how good your reflexes were."

"And?"

"I'm impressed." Gabe rubs idly at where the last shot had caught the edge of his vest and ricocheted slightly to graze his arm; the practice rounds are non-lethal, but that doesn't mean they don't still hurt. He tries not to notice the way McCree's eyes follow his fingers.

"Haven't seen you around much lately, sir. Thought maybe you'd forgotten about me."

"World's a dangerous place," Gabe says, raising an eyebrow. "Sometimes there are other, more pressing matters to attend to than one new Overwatch agent's training."

"You missed a lot of stuff here, sir." (Gabe is starting to regret the 'sir' thing; he didn't realize quite how _suggestive_ it could sound in the right mouth.) "Finished up my training. Got my official Overwatch credentials." McCree produces an Overwatch ID card from somewhere and flashes it and a wide grin at him.

"Oh? Got your badge and gun now, cowboy?" 

McCree goes pink behind his scraggly stubble, but recovers admirably. " _And_ you missed my birthday. Big guy in the armor baked me a cake; bunch of people in the canteen sang the birthday song; even Strike Commander Morrison came by to give me his good wishes, said you sent your regards." And there it is again, that note of uncertainty where by all rights there should only be more ego. If Gabe is being honest with himself, that uncertainty is why he'd recruited McCree at all, why he thought the kid could be--if not rehabilitated, then at least useful.

"I didn't know Reinhardt baked," Gabe says, rather than addressing any of...that.

McCree chuckles. "Wasn't a really good cake, but it was a cake. Deadlock guys didn't even send me a card, so I guess beggars can't be choosers." He looks sideways at Gabe from under his ridiculous eyelashes, and Gabe takes a sharp, involuntary breath.

.

He does not storm into Jack's office, because storming into places is a thing that angry people do and Gabe is not, _is not_ angry. What does he have to be angry about? He may stomp in, sure, may stand sullenly in front of Jack's desk until Jack bothers to acknowledge his presence, but--

"He's joining Blackwatch, then?"

"I had no idea it was his birthday," Gabe finds himself growling.

"He's joining Blackwatch."

"I _still_ don't know when his damn birthday is!"

"I'm sure it's in his personnel file--which you and I both have access to, by the way, leaving you with no reason to barge into my office like this while I'm working." Jack gives him a knowing look. "You gonna be like this with every new recruit, Reyes?"

"I'm not even like this now!" When did he start shouting? Gabe takes a deep breath, then another, and sinks into the chair in front of Jack's desk, pressing his fingers to his temples. He's afraid to look up; he knows Jack is going to be looking at him with either amusement or sympathy, and he's not sure which one's worse.

.

Next time he's in the canteen, Reinhardt is there, with cake.

"A little birdie told me--" Reinhardt says.

Gabe cuts him off. "It's not my birthday."

"No, but I'm sure we've missed at least one, and sometimes the only occasion you need to eat cake is that there is cake!" Reinhardt laughs and claps him on the back jovially before sliding him a piece of brown cake with bright green frosting. From looking at it, Gabe would have guessed it'd be chocolate, but one bite in and, no, that is either something else or something more complicated? He is not entirely sure what kind of expression his face is making right now, but Reinhardt leans in and tells him conspiratorially: "It's an old German recipe!

It's not a good cake, but it's cake, and Gabe has two slices and tries his best not to think about what Reinhardt's "little birdie" must have said to prompt this.

.

"We need to talk about your wardrobe."

McCree, who'd looked utterly panicked when Gabe had sidled up to him and said they needed to talk, laughs nervously. "What's wrong with my wardrobe?" He looks up at the brim of his hat and then down at the ratty poncho he is somehow still wearing, a faux-innocent confusion radiating off of him.

Gabe gives him a stern look. "You're part of Blackwatch now, and while there isn't a dress code exactly... what we do are covert ops, and you stick out like a sore thumb."

"No, y'see, the hat _is_ stealth."

"How's that?"

"It's a distraction. I walk past somebody in this hat, they don't see me, they see the hat. Walk past them again later with no hat, they're not going to recognize me." With one hand, McCree reaches up and removes his hat; with the other, he musses his hair into a slightly different, less hat-flattened style.

Gabe makes a show of peering closely at McCree's face, of putting the hat back on him and removing it again and reexamining him every time. McCree keeps his head still but tracks Gabe's movements with his eyes, obviously trying not to grin.

Gabe almost feels bad for him.

"So I guess my question is: given that I'm not sure I've ever seen you without that hat, what's to say you'll be able to take the hat off when the time comes?"

McCree opens his mouth to answer, confident, then closes it again as his face falls. Then he brightens up. "If you're so sure I'm not gonna stop wearing the hat, then why are you asking me to stop wearing the hat?"

"That's not how this works, cowboy." Gabe takes the hat from him and walks away, over McCree's protests.

They have training later that day, and Gabe hears surprise from the other agents when McCree shows up de-cowboyed: no hat, no boots, no poncho, just his issued Blackwatch gear. Gabe hates to admit it, but he _does_ seem like a different person without the hat. He is subdued and to-the-point and seems somehow smaller. When Valdez, an ex-marine that Gabe is particularly proud of poaching from Strike Commander Morrison and Overwatch proper, asks McCree about the change, McCree casts a sidelong glance at Gabe and shrugs.

Gabe sighs. He's going to have to give the hat back, isn't he.

Wait, he's got an idea.

So, one of the twenty things Gabe has been trying to juggle while they get Blackwatch fully up and running is the Blackwatch swag. They've got an insignia--Jack had described it as _if the Overwatch insignia was trying too hard to be cool_ , but what does he know--and Gabe has been figuring out what all it goes on and how. The combat gear was easy enough to figure out, but he also wanted stuff that could be worn or used around base, clothes and lanyards and mugs and blankets, those kinds of things. To this end, they'd designed a bunch of prototype pieces with the insignia on: shirts with it big across the chest or small over the breast pocket, sweatpants and leggings with it on the hip and matching colored stripes up the side, large swatches of fabric covered in different patterns that incorporate it, jackets with it on the shoulder or the lapel or the back. The stuff had served no purpose after they'd decided what items were going to be available, and he'd almost thrown the whole batch out. Now he's really glad he didn't.

He pulls out his sewing stuff and buckles down.

When he's done, he calls in a favor with maintenance and leaves the finished product on the bunk in McCree's quarters, folded up under the hat Gabe had taken from him. He leaves a note on the top (one he certainly doesn't agonize over, certainly not) that says: _NO PONCHOS. -GR_

McCree shows up to the next training session wearing the hat and a huge grin and Gabe's gift: one of several handmade bandanas made from the Blackwatch insignia fabric. The other agents jostle him teasingly, but he just keeps grinning.

"You seem to be in better spirits," Gabe says.

McCree tips his hat and smiles at him and says, "Sir."

.

The agent pool for Blackwatch isn't very big yet, so when a mission comes up that calls for a whole team of agents, he takes literally everyone on the roster, including McCree. It goes well enough, with minimal casualties and a decent amount of chaos left behind them. Gabe is feeling pretty good about it, and then McCree comes and sits by him on the transport back to base. He _sprawls_ , and Gabe does his best not to cede any ground while also not ending up completely underneath the kid.

"Is it always like this?" McCree asks, gesturing vaguely at the transport and the other agents. "Your missions, I mean. Blackwatch."

"Having second thoughts?" Gabe says, his half-smirk probably visible in the dim transport. Around them, the other agents seem to be mostly asleep. Down the row, Edwards is snoring so loudly that they can hear it from here.

"No, no, not at all. This was--" he pauses (probably searching, Gabe thinks uncharitably, for some appropriately-folksy simile) "--good. This was good. Felt like something I'm meant to be doing."

Gabe is too tired to bother hiding his smile. "Good, kid. That's good."

They sit quietly for long enough that Gabe almost drifts off, and then McCree says, "Am I the only criminal on the team?"

"You're not a criminal," Gabe says through a yawn. "Your record was officially cleared as part of your deal when you joined Overwatch."

McCree makes a noise that sounds both thoughtful and slightly unsatisfied. "That's not what I meant."

Gabe shifts in his seat--jesus, how many limbs does this kid have and why are they all exactly where Gabe wants to be?--and when he finally settles, he says, "Real criminals don't tend to make it into Overwatch, and when they do, they get bounced out pretty quick. It takes a... certain type of person to do this work, but we're not the bad guys, if that's what you're worried about." 

He feels more than sees the way McCree stills at this.

"Now move. I need to get some sleep and you've got your own damn seat." Gabe should have tried that earlier; suddenly all his space is his again. He slides around in the seat until he gets comfortable and pulls his hat down on his forehead, halfway over his eyes, and he's quickly asleep.

(He starts awake a little while later to find that he's shifted slightly during flight: he's leaned over, his head tilted onto McCree's shoulder, McCree's head on his in turn. He goes to sit back up, to lean into the empty space on his other side instead--and then McCree mumbles, "It's just turbulence, sir. Go back to sleep," and Gabe is honestly too tired to argue.)

.

After that, McCree mostly keeps his head down. He spends a lot of time in training. He makes friends with the other agents. He does his best to make himself useful, and is way less of a little shit to pretty much everybody--except Gabe, to whom he is only a little less of a little shit. He doesn't stop flirting, mostly with Gabe, and mostly Gabe lives with it. Sometimes Gabe flirts back, just to fuck with him.

Somehow, he always ends up out on missions with Gabe.

("What is this 'somehow', asshole?" Jack says to Gabe, over drinks. "Are you or are you not still the one who schedules all the missions?")

Gabe, for his part, also keeps his head down and his focus on the mission, trying to prove to Strike Commander Morrison and the UN and everybody else that he can do this, that he's the right man for this job. When he finally stops to come up for air and look around, almost three years have passed. He's assembled a personal strike team of competent agents he trusts, and an organization he can delegate to. Blackwatch has doubled, and doubled, and doubled again in size. They're well-respected and getting things done. He's made it.

This all hits him as he stands, anxiously, on the transport to their latest mission, and the enormity of it and the weight it ought to be off his shoulders causes him to sway a little on his feet, slightly unsteady. He checks behind him and then sits heavily in the empty seat there.

"You okay, sir?" a voice above him asks, and Gabe looks up into McCree's concerned face. It's--it would be idiotic, irresponsible, cliche for him to feel like he was looking at McCree for the first time. He has been working with McCree for years now. They see each other pretty much daily. They've been on missions where he's trusted him with his life. They _flirt_. There's no way he hasn't been looking at this kid.

But.

But the young man in front of him seems vastly different than the kid he remembers. His face has filled out and his facial hair has grown in. He's sturdier, and a little weathered. He looks--solid. Dependable. _Handsome_. The stupid, itchy thing that Gabe has sensibly shoved to the back corner of his mind and refused to call a crush for all these years flares up like a stick of lit dynamite.

He pushes it down with irritation and waves away McCree's inquiry with the same. "I'm fine," he says. "Let's get this show on the road."

The mission goes fine, almost exactly as planned, but Gabe still feels wrong-footed throughout. He misses an easy shot and almost blows their cover--would have, except for some quick thinking from Shiga. He keeps the outward annoyance to a minimum, because he isn't annoyed at his team and they shouldn't have to bear the brunt of it, but he knows they can tell. On the transport out, he probably isn't supposed to notice the way Prithi ushers the others to seats further away from him, giving him space. He appreciates it, he really does, because even if he wasn't feeling like he wanted to set everything on fire right now, he's got a tablet full of financial reports he's supposed to be looking over. It worries him a little how much his eyes keep straying over to the corner of the transport where McCree is playing poker with Edwards and Valdez. It looks like he's losing pretty badly, but he keeps grinning about it, which kindles something warm and bright in Gabe's chest every time.

He is starting to realize that what he'd been categorizing as innocent, maybe-ironic flirting had been anything but. The crush had never gone away; it had been biding its time. Every time McCree had grinned at him and said _I'll let you buy me a drink_ and Gabe had grinned back and answered _maybe next time, cowboy_ , this had been where it was leading. This is his mistake, and he will have to fix it.

"You coming out with us tonight, Reyes?" Edwards says as they make their way from the transport to their debrief.

"Not this time," Gabe says. He waves his tablet vaguely, hoping that it will be a sufficient excuse for bailing on them. "I've got things to do this evening."

"Aww, c'mon, sir." McCree turns to face Gabe but doesn't stop walking. "I'll let you buy me a drink."

"Fuck off, McCree," Gabe says. He regrets his tone as soon as the words leave his mouth--to say nothing of the hurt on McCree's face--and he sighs. "Sorry. Not tonight."

He sees Valdez and Edwards exchange a look.

.

When he'd initially planned the next mission, it was two people, just him and McCree. Instead, he takes Prithi and one of the new kids and tries very hard not to think about it.

.

Three weeks later, Jack appears in his office. He sits down, puts his feet up on the desk, and fixes Gabe with a cool stare.

Gabe glances sideways at the boots on his desk, but takes his time finishing up the mission report he's working on.

"Your strike team is full of persistent assholes," Jack says, when Gabe doesn't look up.

"Sounds like them. What'd they do now?"

"Apparently they _care_ about you or something? Feels like I can't walk ten feet recently without one of them ambushing me to tell me that something's 'up' with you. They say you've been acting weird and won't talk to them about it, and they think that somehow I am the only one in the entire goddamn organization who can talk some sense into you."

Gabe laughs.

"That's what _I_ said," Jack says. "It's like they haven't even met you. Is there a kinder, gentler Gabriel Reyes you've been hiding somewhere all this time?"

"Surely you didn't come here just to insult me."

"No," Jack says as he takes his feet down off the desk and steeples his fingers in front of his face, "I'm here because I trust you, and you trust your people, and if your people think that something is up, they're probably right."

Gabe scrubs a hand over his face. "Let's not do this, Jack."

"You gonna handle your problems like a goddamn adult?"

"Yes. Maybe. Yes." Gabe slumps back in his chair.

"Good," Jack says, climbing to his feet. "Because god knows what I'll do if another one of your idiot children shows up in my office. Valdez and her friend are on my last fucking nerve, and _McCree_ \--"

Gabe can't help it; he looks up. Jack stops talking abruptly and fixes him with a long, hard look.

.

Gabe doesn't really get a chance to handle it like an adult, because everything goes to shit during the next mission. They've got intel that a terrorist organization is going to take over a mech factory and blow it up, and their mission to infiltrate, eliminate, and disarm goes well right up until the last step of their plan. Instead of being able to work together to finish the disarming, the team is split: Gabe and the remaining bombs on one side of a warehouse that is a fairly literal deathtrap, his team and their extraction on the other. It looks like the rest of them can make it to the rendezvous point for pickup while he finishes the mission, so Gabe sends them--they'll be safe, and they can figure out a way to come back for him if he can't make it out himself.

He gets a longer silence than he likes on the radio in response to that order, even when he follows it up with _and that's an order_ , but eventually they reluctantly agree. He watches across the warehouse as his team files out, one by silent one: Prithi, Edwards, Shiga, Valdez, and--

"Go, you idiot," Gabe mutters to himself.

McCree looks at the door the rest of the strike team exited through, over to Gabe and the mech minefield between them, and back again.

"Jesus christ." Gabe smacks his palm to his forehead. "If he comes over here with some 'not without you, sir' bullshit, I swear to god--"

McCree makes his choice.

"I told you to go!" Gabe shouts over the sound of gunfire as McCree slides down next to him behind cover.

"Not without you, sir!" McCree says. Gabe actually groans out loud.

The radio crackles on, and Prithi's voice comes through. "Sir, we're all ready for extraction here, except Jesse. Should we still go?"

McCree grabs Gabe's radio and says, "Go, we've got this."

Gabe grabs the radio back and smacks his hand. "Go, but because _I_ told you to. I'll take care of this idiot." (He is _angry_ ; how did so much fondness filter its way into that?) "Fallback Plan Epsilon is in effect. Agreed?"

Prithi pauses. "Agreed."

"We go radio silent starting...now." Gabe turns off the radio and tucks it away in one of his myriad pouches.

"Epsilon, huh?" McCree says, loudly enough to be heard over the still-unceasing gunfire. "That's the one where we have two days to take care of ourselves before they stage a rescue mission, right?"

"Pretty much. We have to get out of here alive and disarm those bombs, or else they're coming back for our charred corpses. Either way, at least _most_ of my strike team will be clear of the blast radius." Gabe hefts his shotguns, preparing to face the room full of enemy combatants between them and their exit.

"Should be fun," McCree says, pulling his own gun from its holster.

"I'm furious at you." Gabe waves a finger at McCree. "Don't think that I'm not."

McCree gives him a lopsided grin that makes his stomach flip and says, "Worth it."

.

Gabe's still not exactly sure how they managed to escape. He knows they've spent a long time fighting side by side over the last few years, but this was--different. It felt like they were perfectly synchronized, like he knew exactly where McCree was going to be and what he was going to do before he did it, and like McCree knew the same about him. More than once, Gabe had turned to find an enemy with a weapon raised and pointed at him, stunned where they stood by one of McCree's flashbang grenades and easily dispatched. Once, the enemy he'd found had been closer than he'd thought, a single bullet hole between its eyes and McCree all the way across the room. 

As irritated as he'd been by McCree disobeying orders to stay with him, he's not sure he would have made it out alive without him.

It had taken a day and a half, but they'd disposed of the last of the bombs, made it out of the complex relatively unscathed, commandeered a series of vehicles, and eventually made it to the next town on foot, where they'd found themselves just two more attendees of what the banner hanging over Main Street informed them was the local Juniper Berry Festival. It's strange, to think of something this peaceful within a day's travel of someplace as terrible as where they'd come from, but Gabe has been awake for something like forty-eight hours straight at this point and he is willing to take what good luck he can get. They had bandaged their wounds and shed their gear far outside of town, so they take the opportunity to slow down, blend in, and breathe.

Gabe buys a flask full of locally-distilled gin from one of the festival stalls and takes a seat at a picnic table as McCree walks up with a plate piled high with funnel cake. He takes small sips from the flask while McCree sits, both of them on the same side of the table facing the street, then tears a piece off the edge of the funnel cake and holds it in one hand while he holds the flask out to McCree with the other.

"Finally bought you that drink, cowboy."

McCree raises an eyebrow at him but doesn't say anything, just takes the proffered flask and takes one strong gulp from it.

"It's distilled locally," Gabe says over McCree's coughing.

"Is it now?" McCree manages, thumping a fist on his own chest.

Gabe smiles and tears another piece off the funnel cake. He stares out into the crowd of festival-goers, calmly going about their days, eating fair food and buying overpriced locally-made goods and laughing, generally unaware that they'd almost been in the blast range of a massive explosion. They are safe, and happy. They're why Gabe does his job.

"I'm still mad at you," he says, around the two-thirds mark of the flask. "When I tell you to do something, you do it, no questions asked."

McCree chuckles. "Always figured I'd get drummed out of Overwatch. If it's got to be for something, I can live with it being for this," he says, and Gabe looks over at him sharply.

.

Turns out there's only one motel in this town, and it is nearly full of people who've come in from out of town for the festival. The woman behind the desk smiles at McCree as she pages through reservation data. "Sounds like you're pretty far from home, cowboy," she says, and she bats her fucking eyelashes. McCree leans an elbow on the counter and bats his eyelashes back, and Gabe is not allowed to be jealous about this, he's _not_. She finds them a room--just the one, the last one available, and McCree thanks her kindly and takes the room keys from her.

"It'll be fine," McCree tells him as they climb the stairs to their room. "We're lucky they had anything at all."

"I'm sure you making puppy-dog eyes at her didn't hurt," Gabe says, trying and failing to keep the unkindness from his voice, but any argument they are or aren't going to have stops when McCree opens the door to the room and they both see the one bed. 

_Perfect_. Gabe manages not to throw up his hands in frustration, but it is a close thing.

They file into the room and Gabe stakes his claim on the side of the bed by the door. "I'm gonna get cleaned up," McCree says, sounding a little shaky. Gabe nods at him and lays back on the bed, flips through what he thought was a room service menu but turns out to be a booklet of ads for local pizza places. He snorts and sets it back on the bedside table, then turns on the holo-vids. The nightly news is on, and the top story tonight is about Overwatch. Gabe's got the sound off, but it looks like Strike Commander Morrison and a team of agents had single-handedly saved a village full of refugee children from some kind of flood, or terrorists, or maybe both. The camera lingers on Jack's sturdy, heroic jaw, and Gabe can't help but laugh. Motherfucker always did look good on camera.

The shower stops, and he hears McCree puttering around in the bathroom, humming to himself. It's kind of endearing, really. He comes out after a few minutes, wearing boxers and a slightly-too-small t-shirt they'd bought at the festival, rubbing a towel thoroughly through his hair. Gabe looks for longer than he should before he has to look away.

He grabs his things and heads for the bathroom himself, where he takes the quickest, coldest shower he's had in recent memory. When he's done, he stands in the too-bright bathroom light and looks at himself in the mirror, really _looks_. He pulls his face this way and that, looking at the scars there, the new cut he got during this mission and how it's already closing up, the place where his broken nose hadn't healed quite right years ago, the lines at the edge of his eyes, the worry that seems to be etched into his brow. He looks at his hands where they touch his face, at his bruised knuckles. He's not--he's not ever going to bat his eyelashes at anyone and have it work, and that really shouldn't upset him. He shouldn't be upset by that. He's not upset.

He splashes some more cold water on his face.

.

Later that evening, Gabe asks, "Why did you think you were going to get drummed out of Overwatch?" 

McCree laughs. "You serious, sir? You have _met_ me, right?"

"I mean, sure, I've seen your hat, but it's not stupid enough to lose a good agent over."

"Ha, ha, very funny. I thought--" McCree pauses, obviously searching for the right words. "See, you joined Overwatch because of the Omnic Crisis, because it was the right thing to do. You're Gabriel Reyes, a _hero_. I've talked to a lotta other Blackwatch folks, and they've got similar stories--they liked what Overwatch represented, wanted to use their skills for something good, wanted to make the world a better place. And me? I joined Overwatch to stay out of jail." He sighs, long and frustrated. "I've been doing my best to make things right, but sometimes it feels like I never will."

Gabe stares at him, mouth slightly agape. He is suddenly, massively aware of how badly he has failed Jesse McCree. When he finally finds his voice, he says, "You really thought, what, that we were just waiting for you to slip up? And then you'd be out on your ass?"

McCree shrugs, and Gabe can tell how much effort it takes to keep the movement light. "Maybe send me back to prison. I don't know. Didn't read the paperwork too closely. I--" He draws a deep, shaky breath. "I ain't ever had or done that much good in my life. Felt like it was only a matter of time before..."

He trails off, tilts his head back a little and stares at the ceiling, swallows hard.

Gabe is out of his depth. Back at Overwatch HQ, they have people for this: counselors, shrinks. He's just a soldier who's been good enough at his job to keep getting better ones; he doesn't know how to--

"I'm going for a walk," McCree manages, suddenly on his feet. Gabe's hand darts out and grabs McCree's arm almost on its own, and McCree struggles against his grip, saying, "Please, sir, let me go--"

"You're not getting kicked out of Overwatch, McCree. Certainly not over this. You're one of my best agents, and I'm not losing you." McCree keeps pulling, looking at the door, but when Gabe finally says _Jesse_ , he turns back, almost transfixed. "You saved my life on this mission. You're not going anywhere."

McCree looks at him for a second, almost shell-shocked. Before Gabe can think better of it, he steps forward, wraps his arms around McCree's shoulders, and pulls him close. McCree stiffens for a long moment and Gabe _knows_ he's overstepped, this is exactly what he shouldn't have-- But then McCree clings onto him, latching onto his torso and not letting go. Gabe keeps holding on tight, tries to make vaguely comforting noises as McCree finally starts sobbing into his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Gabe says to him.

McCree laughs shakily through his tears. " _You're_ sorry? What for?"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you any of that earlier. I thought you knew."

They separate, finally, and McCree gives him a grateful, watery smile. "Thanks, sir. I... I'm sorry too. This is--" he waves his hands, a little distressed, "--kind of a nightmare."

Gabe chuckles. "Tell you what: I'm gonna go take that walk. I'll take the radio, get stuff moving for our pickup tomorrow, be back in about half an hour. Okay?" McCree nods, and Gabe pulls on his hoodie, grabs the radio, and heads out.

He doesn't use the radio right away. Instead, he walks out of sight of the motel and stands there in the middle of the deserted small-town street, taking some slow, angry breaths. He is so furious, with himself and with everything; he wishes this street was a busy freeway, because he wants to do something less dangerous than what he'd just done, like try to punch an oncoming semi. He can't stop thinking about the way McCree's body had felt, flush against his; about the smell of his stupid hair; about the protective, possessive feeling that had tightened in his chest as he'd held him close. It's dangerous, irresponsible, and, jesus, potentially abusive. No matter how much Gabe wants this, there's no way he wants _that_. (He'd managed something like this before and they'd both come out the other side relatively unscathed, but this is _McCree_. Anybody good enough to come back for a teammate like he had deserves better than the complications of a relationship like that, and _certainly_ deserves better than to have to navigate it with Gabriel fucking Reyes.)

He will fix this.

He finally makes the call, schedules a pickup tomorrow morning. Valdez is the one they've got manning the radio, and she sounds so relieved to know that they're both okay. "I mean, no offense," she says, "We all knew you were going to be okay, Reyes, because you're you. But when it turned out that Jesse had gone back for you--that's when we were really worried. He may be an idiot sometimes, but he's our idiot."

"Seems like that's the Blackwatch way."

Valdez laughs, and he can almost hear the sarcastic salute she offers him back through the radio. "We'll see you tomorrow, Reyes. Take the rest of the night off."

.

When he gets back, McCree has found several extra blankets somewhere (charmed them out of the woman at the front desk, if Gabe had to guess) and has set up the world's saddest blanket fort on the floor, where he apparently intends to sleep. "Can we forget that the last hour or so ever happened?" he says, slinking down into his nest of blankets.

Gabe sighs. "Get in the bed, McCree."

McCree eyes him suspiciously. "I figured--"

"Figure nothing and get in the damn bed. It's been a long day, and I'm not going to have you sleeping on the floor."

McCree looks sheepish and a little flushed, and Gabe strengthens his resolve--he's not going to treat the kid any different than he would any of his other agents. If any of the other agents tried to sleep on the floor, Gabe wouldn't let _them_ , so McCree gets the bed too. He crawls out of the blanket fort, pulls on his t-shirt, and makes his way under the covers. 

Gabe sheds his hoodie, turns out the light, and slides in next to him. He is absolutely _not_ paying attention to the proximity of their bodies or the warmth he can feel coming off McCree. He is lying quietly on his side, facing the door, doing his best not to toss and turn, and waiting for the bone-deep tiredness he's feeling to segue into sleep.

"You know," McCree says into the darkness, "You never call me 'Jesse'."

Gabe does not say: _I am using it as distance between us_ or _for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to withhold something that passed as affection from a too-skinny kid who was starving for it_ or _the way you looked at me the first time I did was more responsibility than I could take_.

Instead, he counters, "You always call me 'sir'."

"You told me to!"

"Yeah, because you were a little shit. I didn't expect you to _listen_."

McCree barks a laugh. "Fair enough, fair enough. Good night... Reyes."

"Good night, McCree," Gabe says, a teasing note in his voice, and he is pleased by the way McCree quietly swears at him.

.

He dreams about the Omnic Crisis. He does often enough that this shouldn't be anything new, but in this dream, every time he shoots an omnic, its corpse morphs into one of his Overwatch teammates: Jack, Ana, Valdez, Reinhardt, Edwards, Torbjörn, McCree. Despite this, he cannot stop. He stands on the battlefield amidst the bodies of his friends, knowing he did this, feeling for all the world like he'd had to, to keep people safe. He's unable to look at them, but unable to look away. They're all calling his name, _Reyes, Reyes, Gabriel Reyes_ \--

He jolts awake, breathing hard. He is disoriented for a second before he starts mentally cataloging: the mission, the festival, the motel. It's still dark outside, but McCree is sitting up next to him, wide-eyed, saying his name.

McCree reaches out a tentative hand to him, and when Gabe doesn't bat it away, he puts it on Gabe's shoulder and squeezes. Without really thinking, Gabe reaches up and puts his hand over McCree's, squeezes back. He still sees Jack's lifeless face staring up at him when he closes his eyes, so having something else to focus on is nice.

"Do you... have a lot of nightmares?" McCree asks.

"Our line of work?" Gabe laughs, a mirthless sound. "Every once in a while." He pulls his hand back, scrubs it over his face. He hadn't known that this day could feel any longer, but here they are. "We should get some sleep. Pickup's not too far out, and I'm sure we're gonna spend the rest of the day in debrief about this goat-rope." 

He lays back in the bed and McCree does the same, and amidst the sea of dead faces he can't stop seeing in the dark, Gabe reaches back when McCree reaches for his hand.

.

The next time he wakes up, it's more peaceful. He fades into consciousness, the room bright behind his eyelids, and he is less alarmed than he should be when he takes stock of his situation: one of his arms is thrown across McCree's torso, against McCree's skin below his rucked-up t-shirt; their legs are tangled together; and his face is nuzzled into McCree's shoulder.

(He isn't--he didn't know he was a nuzzler. Then again, waking up next to someone hasn't really been how his sex life has gone for, well, since at least before the Omnic Crisis ended. It's been a while.)

He shifts gently, trying to take care not to wake McCree. He can't have this, he _knows_ he can't, but he also knows that he is a selfish, flawed idiot who wants as much of this as he can get before it is taken away from him. 

Then he realizes he can't wake McCree, because McCree is already awake, and he probably has been since before Gabe woke up. He puts a hand on the arm Gabe has slung over his torso, and Gabe's plan to extract himself and apologize is suddenly somehow much harder. He can't bring himself to look up at McCree's face, staring instead at where McCree's hand is holding them together.

"Now," McCree says, his voice husky with sleep but his words obviously well-rehearsed. "I know what you're gonna say."

"Do you now."

McCree nods. "Yep. You're gonna apologize, all mortified-like, and you're gonna tell me that you can't do this. You're gonna have a whole list of reasons why not."

"It's a pretty long list," Gabe agrees.

"Makes sense, makes sense. However!"

"However?"

" _However_ ," McCree repeats, and Gabe loves the smile he can hear in his voice, "I have what I think ought to be a pretty compelling counteroffer."

"Oh?" Neither of them have moved yet. "What's that?"

"What if you _didn't_ say any of that?" McCree's hand moves from Gabe's arm to his face, his fingertips brushing along the line of his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw. "What if I kissed you instead?"

Gabe finally manages to look at him. For as confident as he's managed to sound, his face is a different story. He's trying, sure, but his eyes are a little too wide, his lopsided grin a little too wobbly. It looks like the same mix of excitement and terror that Gabe will admit he's feeling himself.

"Interesting counteroffer," Gabe says. "If, hypothetically, I wanted to take you up on it, would that be something you'd want too?"

"Absolutely," McCree breathes. His eyes go wider, and the grin gets more genuine.

"And you're not just saying that because I'm your CO?"

"See, this sounds a lot like that list of reasons--"

"That's not an answer, McCree."

"Reyes,"--and McCree hesitates a little on the name--"I've been flirting with you since literally the day I met you. Pretty sure you already know the answer. _No_ , I'm not just saying that because you're my CO. I want this."

"I had to ask."

"I know, I know, and I do appreciate it. Now that we got all the paperwork signed--" McCree rolls himself over to face Gabe and finally, finally kisses him. It's an almost chaste kiss, careful, a little unsure. It's sweet.

"I didn't guess you'd be the gentle type," Gabe says when McCree pulls back, his hand still on Gabe's cheek, their faces still close.

McCree gives an embarrassed half-shrug and looks away. "Dunno, seemed like the kind of thing you didn't get very much. Seemed...like the kind of thing you deserve."

Gabe doesn't really have time to wonder at this, because McCree kisses him again. _This_ is more like what he'd expected--McCree tugging him close, the hunger as he kisses him, the almost greedy way his tongue slips between Gabe's parting lips. Gabe threads a hand through McCree's hair and doesn't want to ever let go.

McCree eventually pulls away, breathing heavily, and reaches for the hem of Gabe's shirt. Gabe sits up obligingly, regretting that they're not still currently kissing but recognizing that this is a necessary step in a progression. He lifts his arms slightly, and McCree tugs the shirt up over his head. McCree stops partway, though, leaving Gabe with the shirt over his face.

"Is this okay?" McCree asks. "I mean, this ain't what I asked about--"

" _McCree_." Gabe gestures in annoyance with his hands, which are sticking out of the bottom of the shirt, and McCree quickly pulls it the rest of the way off. "It's fine. I'm going to trust you to tell me when to stop, and you're going to trust me, okay?"

McCree nods. His eyes seem to be fixed on Gabe's chest and the network of scars there. Gabe barely thinks anymore about how the Omnic Crisis had written itself on his skin, but he can understand how it might be daunting to someone looking at it for the first time. McCree reaches out, seemingly without meaning to, and traces his fingers along a line of particularly ugly knots of scar tissue on Gabe's chest.

"Stick with me, you'll wind up with some of your own before you know it," Gabe says wryly.

McCree seems to snap back to himself. He wriggles out of his own shirt and twists slightly to show Gabe a long, smooth scar that stretches across his ribs, half-hidden amidst a thicket of chest hair. "Got this with the Deadlock Gang, about a year before Overwatch picked me up. Damn near bled out in the Deadlock hideout." He laughs. "That's probably when I should've gotten out, but if I had, I wouldn't have met you."

"Silver linings."

McCree grins at him and in one swift move is straddling him, one knee on either side of Gabe's thighs, his ass firmly in Gabe's lap. He grinds down and Gabe makes an involuntary noise in the back of his throat. McCree grins wider and kisses him again.

Gabe murmurs _Jesse_ against his mouth, and McCree grips him a little tighter.

.

When it's time for their pickup, the whole strike team shows up, even though Gabe had been very clear that they had completed the mission successfully and didn't need anything like backup. It seems like they're genuinely happy to see the both of them, and Gabe and McCree are doing their best to pretend that they are still the same people they were forty-eight hours ago, like everything hasn't just changed.

On the transport home, Gabe's pretty sure he's not supposed to see when Shiga pulls out his wallet and passes some cash to Prithi. Gabe sidles up to him as she walks away and says, "So what was the bet?"

"Oh, shit." Startled, Shiga fumbles his wallet several times before finally dropping it. "Uh, nothing. Nothing. Definitely nothing. Definitely not when you and Jesse would finally stop flirting and hook up, because that would be very much not cool and make this conversation with you, my commanding officer, really weird right now."

"Yeah," Gabe agrees, "It really would."

.

After the debrief--with Strike Commander Morrison himself, how thrilling!--Jack dismisses McCree and the rest of Gabe's team and keeps Gabe for a minute. "When your team got back, there were rumblings that Agent McCree had stayed behind with you against orders. Any truth to that?"

"I'm sure that I would have told you about it during the debrief, if it had happened," Gabe says, offering Jack the most casual shrug he can muster.

Jack's mouth twitches with a smile; they're on the same page, then. "You seem... happier."

Gabe sighs. "Don't."

"And I've looked at the receipts you turned in--"

" _Don't._ "

"Anything you need to tell me?"

Gabe stares Jack down. "Nothing you need to know."

Jack stares back, waiting, and when Gabe doesn't break, he chuckles. "Good talk. You know, I'm so glad we're friends," he says. 

Gabe finally cracks a smile.

.

Turns out Valdez hadn't been lying about the strike team being worried, because that evening there is a We're Glad You're Not Dead party for McCree--and, by extension, Gabe. There's drinks and music and a terrible cake with WE'RE GLAD YOU'RE NOT DEAD written on it in icing. Gabe's strike team is there, along with a bunch of the original Overwatch members and a number of other Blackwatch and Overwatch agents Gabe recognizes. Gabe mostly sticks with McCree, watching as people come by to congratulate him on not being dead and as McCree is a charming asshole to every one of them; he hides a smile behind his beer bottle and leans into McCree as subtly as he can.

Eventually he is drawn away into a conversation with Torbjörn and Ana and a gangly young woman who turns out to be Ana's daughter Fareeha (good _grief_ she'd grown up while Gabe wasn't looking) about the Good Old Days and the direction that Overwatch is taking now. He loses track of McCree, and when he finally looks for him, he finds him half-cornered by Jack, who is gesticulating with a vigor that worries Gabe. He makes eye contact with them both and works his way over to them, but when Gabe arrives, Jack quickly takes his leave.

"Everything okay?" Gabe asks, because McCree looks a little shaken.

"You know that thing where somebody starts dating your friend and you tell them how they'd better not hurt your friend or you'll hurt them? It's got a name--"

"A shovel talk? Did Jack fucking Morrison give you a shovel talk?!" Jack is about twenty feet away, talking casually with Edwards and Liao, and Gabe catches his attention and glares at him. The look Jack gives him back radiates innocence.

"I think Strike Commander Morrison gave me the opposite of a shovel talk," McCree says. "Seems if you hurt me, he'll kill you."

Gabe laughs. "Sounds about right."

Across the room, Valdez raises her beer and shouts a toast: _to McCree, and to Reyes, to Reyes and McCree, and to being not dead_.

Gabe will toast to that.

.

"You know," Gabe says into McCree's shoulder as McCree backs him into the wall of Gabe's quarters and fumbles with the buttons on his shirt, "This is still a terrible idea."

"I don't see you stopping," McCree says, finally getting the buttons undone and peeling the shirt off. He presses a flurry of insistent kisses on Gabe's bare skin, then looks up at him and grins. "Besides, all the best things are."


End file.
